


things we lost to the flames

by betony



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Drabble Sequence, Future Fic, Gen, Yuletide Madness Drabble Invitational
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:28:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/pseuds/betony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eugenides returns to the mountain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inkasrain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkasrain/gifts).



> Title from "Things We Lost in the Fire" by Bastille.

After the fire, Eugenides went back up the mountain. 

It was the least he could do; after all, it was his fault it had caught aflame in the first place. Now he crawled back, heart heavy with loss, body aching. The thunderbolts he had stolen from his sister were still in possession of the rivers, and Hamiathes waited in Hephestia’s great temple to bring the bad news to her, but Eugenides was tired and grieving and he wanted nothing more than to go home. 

But home had changed around him, and he found no solace there. Nor anywhere, ever again.


	2. Chapter 2

“How are you here?” Helen’s voice echoes in the charred ruins of the great throne room. She cannot think of herself as Eddis, not here, not now. 

“Attolia sent me.” Gen leans against what’s left of a wall, arms crossed. “My wife is unfortunately so familiar with my sobs that she knows when she can leave me to them and when she must send me home.” He breaks off. “I had hoped—I prayed this day would never really come.” 

“I always knew it would,” says Helen, composed as Hephestia herself. “And no amount of praying would have changed that.”


	3. Chapter 3

At dinner, Sounis asks the King of Attolia for a story, “like old times.” 

Attolis laughs and gulps down another swallow of wine. Again and again he tells of Eugenides returning to the fire-struck mountain and what he found there, each more ridiculous than the last. Sometimes it is a donkey with a red-colored beard; sometimes a callow youth he molds into his sister’s consort; sometimes a mirror to mock his own foolishness. 

“Is it wise,” Eddis asks, when they are alone, “to make light of the god?” 

Attolis’s lip curls. “I don’t care. He can allow me that much.”


	4. Chapter 4

Attolis’s eyes narrows. “Helen, you’re not—Shall I call my barons, then, to appoint my heir?“ 

Looking resigned, the Queen of Eddis nods. 

“I shall be,” says Attolis, warming to his subject, “the most demanding uncle possible. Sounis’s childhood will be nothing. I shall require frequent updates on my heir’s progress, proofs of his—or her—merit—“ 

“In the form of the court demanding their head before they’re full grown,” supplies Eddis. “And you’ll deny them the crown until they steal it from you." 

“That is an excellent suggestion; I shall take it into consideration,” Attolis replies.

Eddis laughs.


	5. Chapter 5

“You wanted to come home,” mourns Eddis when they part. “Not to find this instead.” 

“I will always want to come home,” Attolis admits. “Sometimes I think I would give anything to have never lost it.” 

“Anything?” Eddis repeats sharply, sounding so like Moira that Attolis blushes and amends, “Almost anything.” 

“That choice is made already,” Eddis reminds him. “But you have others before you to make. Keep us safe from the Mede, Eugenides, and I will preserve as much of our home as I can.” 

“Agreed,” says Attolis, and they clasp hand and hook in the binding oath of rulers.


	6. Chapter 6

After the fire, Eugenides Annux, Thief-reborn, went back up the mountain. 

It was the least he could do; the world looked to him, and he to Eddis, equal only to Hephestia. He rode up, fearless, to salvage what he could from the mountains to use against the Mede. 

You know the rest, child. You know of the Continental War, of the Medes’s defeat, of Eugenides’s heir, the first Queen of Three Kingdoms, her mind sharper than diamonds, her heart stronger than stone. 

All this he saw when he went up the mountain. He did not despair. Neither must you.


End file.
